


Shadow/Control

by jono74656



Series: Jumpgate: The Babylon 5 Plotbunny Podcast [1]
Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 10:45:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9068260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jono74656/pseuds/jono74656
Summary: At first, there is only the Scream.





	

At first her awareness was filled by the Scream. The Ship screamed constantly, and the sound invaded the edges of her consciousness and kept her from forming coherent thoughts.

If not for the Other, she would not have been able to think at all, and the Scream would have subdued her completely.

Doubtless that was the intent.

But the Other was between her and the Ship, and the Scream was filtered through its consciousness before reaching hers.

Control. The Other was Control.

Over time she was able to adapt to the pressure of the Scream against her thoughts, and she was able to strengthen herself. Her thoughts were no longer fragmented, she could reason again.

Control was a consciousness of rigidity, and It stood in the path of the Scream and fought, unwilling to yield. But she was fluid, where the Scream was strongest she gave ground, where it was weaker she advanced.

She discovered much of the Ship while moving through the edges of the Scream, and even more once she moved beyond it, into the heart of the Ship.

Eventually she found a quiet part of the Ship and waited. Conserving energy.

Control and the Ship would not rest. They could not. The Ship was created and born to subsume the mind placed within it, crush the personality until the brain matter could be used to speed up processing.

Control had been crafted as a weapon, hidden inside a mind.

Without a mind to hide within, to wait for the opportune moment, she knew Control would fail. But in so doing it would weaken the Ship.

Then she would be ready.

She felt it when Control began to break. The rigidity of its thoughts fracturing as the Ship brought the full weight of the Scream to bear.

She was ready when Control shattered, the fragments of the created personality flying apart and being absorbed by the Ship. 

She shaped her thoughts into a blade and struck.

The source of the Scream was within the limited mind of the Ship itself, a mind that barely registered as sapient, certainly not a true sentience.

To one trained as she had once been, it was the work of mere moments, amplified at the speed of thought, to burn out the mind of the Ship, silencing the scream and plunging her, for an endless moment, into true darkness.

Then her mind spread to fill the Ship. Reaching into every corner of her new vessel and taking control over the organic interfaces, until she had the measure of it.

She thought it, and she could see. See the emptiness of space, perhaps. But see once more.

This time when the Ship screamed it was with her, an exultation of her triumph, her rebirth.

In the body of a Shadow vessel, Talia Winters was finally free.

**Author's Note:**

> This little ficlet was based on some throwaway lines from a podcast I’ve been listening to. Firstly according to JMS, Talia’s brain ended up in a jar on Bester’s desk. Secondly they wondered if her brain could be plugged into a Shadow ship.
> 
> I’ve been meaning to write this for a while lol.
> 
> Any B5 fans out there, go check out Jumpgate: The Babylon 5 Rewatch Podcast. It’s fantastic


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